


No Escape This Time

by Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism



Category: Original Work
Genre: Haven't been around humans for so long, Inspired By Tumblr, M/M, Posted at midnight on New Year's Eve, Secret Identity, Superheroes, What Was I Thinking?, bear with me, don't know why, first original work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-01 16:59:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17247998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism/pseuds/Pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism
Summary: Jake is an Ordinary Human Being™. He goes to work, moans at his flatmates, goes on dates with his boyfriend Ethan and lives life with his head kept down. Until he becomes a supervillain. Which would be much easier if Ethan wasn't his archnemesis.





	No Escape This Time

For the first time, Jake did his evil laugh. It was a good little evil laugh. A sort of cold, little “Hahahahaha”, like an emperor who knows his victim can’t escape. Jake was proud of that laugh. He’d worked hard on it.  
“You think you can stop me?” he questioned through his mask. “I am the great Doctor Shadow, and none can defy me. I have the honour of killing you on our first meeting.” He had to admit, he was rambling now. It was a bad habit of his, but he was never the kind to give up old habits. “Any last words?”  
“Only this,” declared Badgerman, kneeling before Jake’s vast arsenal of Shade Grenades. Honestly. Badgerman. Terrible name for a superhero name. Sounded like something a bored kid would come up with. “I’m a badger-based vigilante. You really shouldn’t have made your secret base underground.”  
And before Jake could comprehend the oddity of that statement, Badgerman turned and plunged into the floor beneath his feet. Jake had just began to understand what had happened, and to question why Badgerman hadn’t done that earlier, when, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed the lights on the Shade Grenades all blink out of existence and the darkness stop billowing from the vents he’d secretly had built into the ceiling.  
Dammit.  
Badgerman had clearly deactivated the arsenal. If he was half as smart as Jake had been led to believe, he’d have deactivated the entire power supply of the base. Now, the only things inside that would still be operational were the laptop of plans and cat pictures, the broken SuperTorch™ and Jake’s suit. This was bad. Now that Badgerman had effectively disabled the entire base, the only thing left for him to do was to come after Jake. Jake suspected he had only seconds before the latter came true.  
He had to think fast. He grabbed the laptop (he wasn’t going to let those cat pictures get away from him), scrambled to grasp the button on his belt and made sure he was in the shadows before pressing the button.  
Immediately, Jake felt exhausted. The energy drain was a side effect of that ‘neat little trick’, but then again, so was Badgerman taking out his entire operation. This was really his last resort, and he didn’t want to waste it simply because he was too tired. Remind him to fix the fatigue problem first opportunity he got.  
Jake had seconds. He managed to melt into the shadows at the very same moment a presumably startled-looking Badgerman (it was so hard to tell under the mask) inadvertently melted through a shadow into the room. Jake stumbled through the darkness to a shadow behind an old Nandos, and he didn’t look back.  
***  
Jake, having managed to retrieve his ‘civilian’ stuff from where he’d left, crept cautiously into the flat. He didn’t want to have to explain to his flatmates why he was so exhausted just yet. Unfortunately for him however, luck was not on his side.  
“You alright, Jake?” moaned an extremely hungover Esme, walking into the kitchen. “You look… sweaty.” There were several other observations she could have made about him at that given time, but his perspiration seemed to be forefront in her brain.  
“Yeah, Yeah… Just… went for a run,” Jake blathered weakly. Running was something normal people did, right? He really needed to get to his room to hide the Doctor Shadow costume. He knew the excuse was a weak one, but he was in a bit of a hurry.  
“You go jogging? Goddammit, one person is enough.” To someone on the outside looking in, the situation might have seemed quite funny. Two exhausted young adults, standing in a shared kitchen, one fatigued from travelling through shadows, the other hungover after a wild night out with her latest boy toy.  
“Yeah, yeah, on a bit of a health kick at the moment. Build up some muscle or something…” Whilst Jake was sort of on a health kick at the moment, he did not need to build up any muscle. He had spent weeks in various gyms under the pretence of going to the library in order to make himself extra strong, something he’d made sure his suit accentuated perfectly. He was slightly insulted that nobody had mentioned it.  
Thankfully, Jake was saved from further casual interrogation by another flatmate. Ethan, that pinnacle of seemingly every positive quality in existence, strolled breezily into the kitchen. Somehow, also tired, but managing - or at the very least trying - to hide it.  
“Jake, we still on for that date?” he enquired. “Only you weren’t answering your phone, so…”  
“Oh, sorry, I must have forgotten to take my phone with me,” Jake explained. He never forgot his phone. “I went for a run.” Somehow, if he repeated it, the lie seemed realer.  
“Do you have any idea how annoying that is?” groaned Esme from a corner. “You two are actually dating. You’re barely out of uni and you’re already living together. And then there’s me, stuck watching you two and spending every night getting rejected by boys who I’ll never see again but they’ll still like my Instagram posts.”  
“Zack’s looking for a girlfriend,” suggested Ethan. “Maybe you can invite him to go paint the town red if he ever gets off his Xbox.”  
And that was it. That was the moment Jake realized. He’d heard that voice before. And not just from Ethan, not just that voice. ‘I can set you up with Gravitron if you like,’ Badgerman had said. ‘Maybe you can invite him to go paint the town red if he ever gets out of prison.’ It was a cheap insult to an old enemy of Badgerman’s, but also a witty response to an old friend of Ethan’s.  
That was why he was tired.  
That was why the voice sounded familiar.  
That was why he hadn’t been at the flat, when Jake had been sure he was.  
Jake was dating a man who he had just mocked, caught and tortured. This could not be good. Make a mental note not to be so harsh on Badgerman next time.

**Author's Note:**

> My first original work, and my first work not on Fanfiction! Let me know what you think, and whether you want me to continue with either of my other series. Thank you!


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